Last year my area went fully digital and I was getting a good strong signal. I have a good aerial (DAT 45 plus masthead amp - I was in a low signal area) from pre switchover days. I also have freeview on my TV and on a second trial BTVision box - all looped from the back of the old silver BT Vision box

Recently the picture on the old box gradually started to get weaker and BBC stopped working altogether but strangely the other freeview tuners worked perfectly. I kept getting the freeview signal too weak message. Originally I thought my old silver BT Vision box was dying. Then I read on the freeview sites that power was gradually being gradually increased.

I knew too much signal can be bad, so I decided to turn off the masthead amplifier but left the cables in place. BBC reappeared but was still weak. Yesterday I removed the amp from the circuit and did a direct connection with the aerial lead to BTVision box - still got weak BBC.

It then occured to me that I should do a rescan - when the signal was previously too strong the box had tuned to the weaker signals from a more distant transmitter. My assumption is that the silver BTVision box was acting as a load on the signal reducing it sufficiently to allow the other two freeview tuners to work normally.

Following a rescan I was getting 100% quality on most channels although signal is still very strong (100%) and everything is working perfectly

Moral of the story, if you get the freeview signal too weak message in a high signal area it may be because your signal is too high and you need to reduce it

Re: Freeview weak signal for info

This is becoming a more familiar problem since dso as some transmitters have increased the power output at the same time

as above the solution is to reduce the signal either by removing the booster if fitted. if the problem still persists you can fit a small in line device called an attenuator. These come in various strengths marked in Db's the higher the Db figure the more attenuation is given to the signal. They are also available as a variable attenuator if you aren't sure what strength you need.

if youhave a strong signal with a low quality then this is a good indication that the signal is in fact too strong.

no trees were harmed in the sending of this message but millions of electrons were terribly inconvenienced